Elmer Bernstein
| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Ojai, California, U.S. | origin = | genre = Film scores | occupation = Composer, conductor, songwriter | instrument = Keyboards | years_active = 1951–2002 }} Elmer Bernstein (April 4, 1922 – August 18, 2004) was an American composer and conductor known for his film scores. In a career that spanned more than five decades, he composed "some of the most recognizable and memorable themes in Hollywood history", including over 150 original movie scores, as well as scores for nearly 80 television productions.":BIOGRAPHY", Official Site of Elmer Bernstein, The Bernstein Family Trust. Retrieved August 2, 2018. Examples of his widely popular and critically acclaimed works are scores to The Ten Commandments (1956), The Magnificent Seven (1960), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Great Escape (1963), The Rookies (1972-76), Animal House (1978), Airplane! (1980), Heavy Metal (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), The Black Cauldron (1985), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Wild Wild West (1999) and Far from Heaven (2002). Bernstein won an Oscar for his score to Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and was nominated for 14 Oscars in total. He also won two Golden Globe Awards, an Emmy Award, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards. Early life Bernstein was born to a Jewish familyThe Guardian: "Elmer Bernstein - Prolific Hollywood composer whose scores ranged from The Magnificent Seven to Far From Heaven" Michael Freedland 19 August 2004. in New York City, the son of Selma (née Feinstein, 1901-1991), from Ukraine, and Edward Bernstein (1896-1968), from Austria-Hungary.Biography Contrary to popular assumption, he was not related to the celebrated composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, but the two men were friends. Within the world of professional music, they were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames Bernstein West (Elmer) and Bernstein East (Leonard). They also pronounced their surnames differently. Elmer pronounced his "BERN-steen", and Leonard used "BERN-stine". During his childhood, Bernstein performed professionally as a dancer and an actor, in the latter case playing the part of Caliban in The Tempest on Broadway, and he also won several prizes for his painting. He attended Manhattan's progressive Walden School and gravitated toward music at the age of twelve, at which time he was given a scholarship in piano by Henriette Michelson, a Juilliard teacher who guided him throughout his entire career as a pianist. She took him to play some of his improvisations for composer Aaron Copland, who was encouraging and selected Israel Citkowitz as a teacher for the young boy.Biography songwritershalloffame.org, retrieved December 21, 2009 Elmer Bernstein's music has some stylistic similarities to Copland's music, most notably in his western scores, particularly sections of Big Jake, in the Gregory Peck film Amazing Grace and Chuck, and in his spirited score for the 1958 film adaptation of Erskine Caldwell's novel God's Little Acre. He had a lifelong enthusiasm for an even wider spectrum of the arts than his childhood interests would imply and, in 1959, when he was scoring The Story on Page One, he considered becoming a novelist and asked the film's screenwriter, Clifford Odets, to give him lessons in writing fiction. Career Bernstein wrote the theme songs or other music for more than 200 films and TV shows, including The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Ten Commandments (1956),'' True Grit, ''The Man with the Golden Arm, To Kill a Mockingbird, Robot Monster, Ghostbusters and the fanfare used in the National Geographic television specials. His theme for The Magnificent Seven is also familiar to television viewers, as it was used in commercials for Marlboro cigarettes. Bernstein also provided the score to many of the short films of Ray and Charles Eames. In 1961 Bernstein co-founded Äva Records, an American record label based in Los Angeles together with Fred Astaire, Jackie Mills and Tommy Wolf. Broadway In addition to his film music, Bernstein wrote the scores for two Broadway musicals, How Now, Dow Jones, with lyricist Carolyn Leigh, in 1967 and Merlin, with lyricist Don Black, in 1983.Internet Broadway Database listing ibdb.com; retrieved December 21, 2009. One of Bernstein's tunes has since gained a lasting place in U.S. college sports culture. In 1968, University of South Carolina football head coach Paul Dietzel wrote new lyrics to "Step to the Rear", from How Now, Dow Jones. The South Carolina version of the tune, "The Fighting Gamecocks Lead the Way", has been the school's fight song ever since. Politics Along with many in Hollywood, Bernstein faced censure during the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. Bernstein was called by the House Un-American Activities Committee when it was discovered that he had written some music reviews for a Communist newspaper. After he refused to name names, pointing out that he had never attended a Communist Party meeting, he found himself composing music for movies such as Robot Monster and Cat-Women of the Moon, a step down from his earlier Sudden Fear and Saturday's Hero. Association with John Landis John Landis grew up near Bernstein, and befriended him through his children. Years later, he requested that Bernstein compose the music for National Lampoon's Animal House, over the studio's objections. He explained to Bernstein that he thought that Bernstein's score, playing it straight as if the comedic Delta frat characters were actual heroes, would emphasize the comedy further. The opening theme to the movie is based upon a slight inversion of a secondary theme from Brahms's Academic Festival Overture. Bernstein accepted the job, and it sparked a second wave in his career, where he continued to compose music for high-profile comedies such as Ghostbusters, Stripes, Airplane! and The Blues Brothers, as well as most of Landis's films for the next 15 years, including the famed music video to the Michael Jackson song "Thriller". ''Cape Fear'' When Martin Scorsese announced that he was re-making Cape Fear, Bernstein adapted Bernard Herrmann's original score to the new film. Bernstein leapt at the opportunity to work with Scorsese, as well as to pay homage to Herrmann.Woodward, Josef (1991). Sounds Around Town — Elmer Bernstein: A First in His Career: Composer: From 'Cape Fear' to 'The Grifters,' all of his film scores this year are different. On purpose. Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1991. Scorsese and Bernstein subsequently worked together on two more films, The Age of Innocence (1993) and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Bernstein had previously conducted Herrmann's original unused score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1966 Torn Curtain."Talk on the Wild Side" bernardherrmann.org, June 2003. Classical Having studied composition under Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, and Stefan Wolpe, Bernstein also performed as a concert pianist between 1939 and 1950 and wrote numerous classical compositions, including three orchestral suites, two song cycles, various compositions for viola and piano and for solo piano, and a string quartet. As president of the Young Musicians Foundation, Bernstein became acquainted with classical guitarist Christopher Parkening and wrote a Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, which Parkening recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra under Bernstein's baton for the Angel label in 1999. In addition, Bernstein was a professor at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music and conductor of the San Fernando Valley Symphony in the early 1970s.Patrick Russ, liner notes for Christopher Parkening • Elmer Bernstein • Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra for Two Christophers (Angel CD 7243 5 56859 2 6), New York, Angel Records, 2000. Awards Over the course of his career, Bernstein won an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.Internet Movie Database listing, Awards imdb.com, retrieved December 21, 2009 In addition, he was nominated for the Tony Award three times and a Grammy Award five times. He received 14 Academy Award nominations and was nominated at least once per decade from the 1950s until the 2000s, but his only win was for Thoroughly Modern Millie for Best Original Music Score. Bernstein was recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with Golden Globes for his scores for To Kill a Mockingbird and Hawaii. In 1963, he won the Emmy for Excellence in Television for his score of the documentary The Making of The President 1960. He is the recipient of Western Heritage Awards for The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Hallelujah Trail (1965). He received five Grammy Award nominations from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and garnered two Tony Award nominations for the Broadway musicals How Now Dow Jones and Merlin. Additional honors included Lifetime achievement awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the Society for the Preservation of Film Music, the US, Woodstock, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach and Flanders International Film Festivals and the Foundation for a Creative America. In 1996, Bernstein was honored with a star on Hollywood Boulevard.Biography filmreference.com, retrieved December 21, 2009Hollywood Star Walk - Elmer Bernstein, Composer Star on the 7000 block of Hollywood Boulevard In 1999, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Five Towns College in New York City and was honored by the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Bernstein again was honored by ASCAP with its marquee Founders Award in 2001 and with the NARAS Governors Award in June 2004. His scores for The Magnificent Seven and To Kill a Mockingbird were ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth and seventeenth greatest American film scores of all time, respectively, on the list of AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, and Jerry Goldsmith are the only composers to have two scores listed, and are therefore in second place for the most scores on the list, behind John Williams, who has three. Other Bernstein film scores nominated for the list are as follows: *''The Age of Innocence'' (1993) *''Far from Heaven'' (2002) *''The Great Escape'' (1963) *''Hawaii'' (1966) *''The Man with the Golden Arm'' (1955) *''Summer and Smoke'' (1961) *''Sweet Smell of Success'' (1957) *''The Ten Commandments'' (1956) *''Walk on the Wild Side'' (1962) Personal life and death Bernstein was married three times, first to Rhoda Federgreen. Their marriage lasted from 1942 to 1946. Bernstein's second wife was Pearl Glusman, whom he wed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 21, 1946."Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Marriage Indexes, 1885-1951," database with digital image of original Elmer Bernstein-Pearl Glusman marriage license 826434, December 21, 1946; FamilySearch, archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Retrieved August 2, 2018.Severo, Richard (2004). "Elmer Bernstein, a Composer of Scores Capable of Outshining Their Films, Dies at 82", The New York Times, August 20, 2004. Retrieved August 1, 2018. After the couple's divorce in 1965, Bernstein married Eve Adamson. They remained together for 39 years, until his death. The Bernsteins in the 1990s resided in Hope Ranch, a suburb of Santa Barbara, California. Later, they moved to a home in Ojai, California, where Elmer died from cancer on August 18, 2004, at age 82."Great Escape composer dies at 82", BBC News, August 19, 2004. His publicist Cathy Mouton simply stated at the time that Bernstein had died following a lengthy illness.Luther, Claudia (2004)."Elmer Bernstein, 82; Composer Who Won Oscar 'Could Do It All'", Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2004 He was survived by his wife Eve and their two daughters, Emilie and Elizabeth; by his two sons, Peter and Gregory Bernstein, from his earlier marriage to Pearl Glusman; and by five grandchildren. Influences *Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Dimitri Tiomkin, Duke Ellington, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, Miklós Rózsa, Jimmie Lunceford, Max Steiner, Victor Young, Aaron Copland, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, Roger Sessions, Stefan Wolpe Legacy He influenced Alan Silvestri, Georges Delerue, Howard Shore, James Newton Howard, John Barry, Lalo Schifrin, Dick Hyman, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Trevor Jones, Mark Isham, Bear McCreary, Danny Elfman, Alan Menken, and Randy Newman. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Elmer Bernstein among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire. List of works Film 1950s * Saturday's Hero (1951) * Battles of Chief Pontiac (1952) * Sudden Fear (1952) * Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) * Never Wave at a WAC (1953) * Robot Monster (1953) * Silent Raiders (1954) * The Eternal Sea (1955) * The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) * The View from Pompey's Head (1955) * The Ten Commandments (1956) * Men in War (1957) * Drango (1957) * Fear Strikes Out (1957) * Sweet Smell of Success (1957) * The Tin Star (1957) * Desire Under the Elms (1958) * Kings Go Forth (1958) * God's Little Acre (1958) * The Buccaneer (1958) * Some Came Running (1958) * The Miracle (1959) 1960s * The Magnificent Seven (1960) * The Rat Race (1960) * The Story on Page One (1960) * From the Terrace (1960) * The Comancheros (1961) * By Love Possessed (1961) * The Young Doctors (1961) * Summer and Smoke (1961) * To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) * Walk on the Wild Side (1962) * A Girl Named Tamiko (1962) * Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) * Kings of the Sun (1963) * The Caretakers (1963) * The Great Escape (1963) * Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) * Hud (1963) * The Carpetbaggers (1964) * The World of Henry Orient (1964) * The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) * The Hallelujah Trail (1965) * Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) * 7 Women (1966) * Return of the Seven (1966) * Hawaii (1966) * Cast A Giant Shadow (1966) * The Silencers (1966) * Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) * The Scalphunters (1968) * I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968) * Powers of Ten (1968) * The Gypsy Moths (1969) * The Bridge at Remagen (1969) * Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) * True Grit (1969) 1970s * The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970) * Cannon for Cordoba (1970) * A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970) * Big Jake (1971) * Doctors' Wives (1971) * See No Evil (1971) * The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972) * The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972) * Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973) * Gold (1974) * McQ (1974) * Nightmare Honeymoon (1974) * The Trial of Billy Jack (1974) * Mr Quilp (1975) * Report to the Commissioner (1975) * From Noon Till Three (1976) * The Incredible Sarah (1976) * The Shootist (1976) * Slap Shot (1977) * Powers of Ten (1977) * National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) * Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1978) * Bloodbrothers (1978) * Casey's Shadow (1978) (Rejected Score) * Zulu Dawn (1979) * The Great Santini (1979) * Meatballs (1979) 1980s * Airplane! (1980) * The Blues Brothers (1980) * Saturn 3 (1980) * Heavy Metal (1981) * Honky Tonk Freeway (1981) * Going Ape! (1981) * The Chosen (1981) * An American Werewolf in London (1981) * Stripes (1981) * Genocide (1982) * Five Days One Summer (1982) * Our House (1982) * Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) * Michael Jackson's Thriller (1983) * Class (1983) * Trading Places (1983) * Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) * Prince Jack (1984) * Marie Ward - Zwischen Galgen und Glorie (1984) * Bolero (1984) * Ghostbusters (1984) * The Black Cauldron (1985) * Spies Like Us (1985) * ¡Three Amigos! (1986) * Legal Eagles (1986) * Leonard Part 6 (1987) * Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987) * Funny Farm (1988) * The Good Mother (1988) * Da (1988) * My Left Foot (1989) * Slipstream (1989) 1990s * The Field (1990) * The Grifters (1990) * Cape Fear (1991) * Rambling Rose (1991) * A Rage in Harlem (1991) * Oscar (1991) * Innocent Blood (1992) (Rejected Score) * Mad Dog and Glory (1993) * The Age of Innocence (1993) * Lost in Yonkers (1993) * The Cemetery Club (1993) * The Good Son (1993) * Roommates (1995) * Search and Destroy (1995) * Canadian Bacon (1995) * Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) * Frankie Starlight (1995) * Bulletproof (1996) * Buddy (1997) * The Rainmaker (1997) * Superjail! (1997) * Hoodlum (1997) * Twilight (1998) * Bringing Out the Dead (1999) * Wild Wild West (1999) * The Deep End of the Ocean (1999) 2000s * Keeping the Faith (2000) * Far from Heaven (2002) Television 1950s * General Electric Theater (1958–59; 8 episodes) * Johnny Staccato (1959–60; 23 episodes) * Riverboat (1959–60; 18 episodes) 1960s * The Beachcomber (1962; 13 episodes) * The Dick Powell Show (1962; 1 episode) * The DuPont Show of the Week (1962; 1 episode) * The Making of the President, 1960 (1963; Television film) * Hollywood and the Stars (1963–64; 7 episodes) * National Geographic Specials (1966; 1 episode) * ABC Stage 67 (1966–67; 2 episodes) * The Big Valley (1967–68; 24 episodes) * Julia (1968–70; 60 episodes) 1970s * Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law (1971–74; 20 episodes) * Gunsmoke (1972; 1 episode) * The Rookies (1972–74; 12 episodes) * Ellery Queen (1975–76; 17 episodes) * Serpico (1976; Pilot episode) * Captains and the Kings (1976; Miniseries - 8 episodes) * Once an Eagle (1976–77; Miniseries - 7 episodes) * Seventh Avenue (1977; Miniseries - 2 episodes) * Little Women (1978; Miniseries - 2 episodes) * The Chisholms (1979; Miniseries - 4 episodes) 1980s * Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980; Television film) * This Year's Blonde (1980; Television film) * Ripley's Believe It or Not! (1983; 1 episode) * Gulag (1985; Television film) 1990s * The Bogie Man (1992; Television film) * Fallen Angels (1993–95; 10 episodes) * Rough Riders (1997; Miniseries - 2 episodes) * Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999; Television film) 2000s * Cecil B. De Mille – American Epic (2004; Television film) Broadway theatre * Peter Pan (1954) – composer of incidental music * How Now, Dow Jones (1967) – Composer – Tony Co-Nomination for Best Musical, Tony Co-Nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist * Merlin (1982) – Composer and incidental-music composer – Tony co-nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist References External links * * * * *Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks *Lifetime Achievement Sammy Film Music Award *BernsteinWest.com, a fan tribute site }} Category:Elmer Bernstein Category:1922 births Category:2004 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:American film score composers Category:American male classical composers Category:American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Category:American classical composers Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American musical theatre composers Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:Deaths from cancer in California Category:Äva Records artists Category:Imperial Records artists Category:Jewish American classical composers Category:Jewish American composers Category:Jewish American songwriters Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:Male film score composers Category:Musicians from New York City Category:Pupils of Roger Sessions Category:Songwriters from New York (state) Category:Thornton School of Music faculty Category:20th-century American composers Category:20th-century male musicians Category:Walden School (New York City) alumni Category:Emilie A. 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